Biblical Covenants: Creation

Intro:

There are two main ways to get to vacation destination: the quicker way, down the highway, which allows you to travel at high speeds with minimal turns. The downside, highways miss the beauty of the countryside.

The second way to travel is the backroads. This way takes more time but you really capture the differing cultures and scenery along your journey. Today, I want to take us on a scenic tour of the Scriptures. It will get us to where we have been in Nehemiah 10 but I need to take you on some backroads to help all of us understand our destination of seeing Christ in all of the Scriptures.

Review:

Note what the Word has accomplished in them:

Re-established the neglected feasts

Praised the Lord and confessed their violations against the law

Recommit themselves to the covenant that was established with God.

In our text this afternoon, we are going to look at what is the best understanding of God’s covenant with his people and why the Jews in Nehemiah’s day would be re-committing themselves to it in our verses of study.

A PRIMER ON BIBLICAL COVENANTS

What is a covenant?

Simply put, a covenant is an agreement between two parties. That agreement is often highlighted by one strong party with one weaker party. For example, a person lending money is a stronger party lending money to the weaker or poorer one. In the case of biblical covenants, the Lord is the stronger party of the covenant while Israel was the weaker party.

Covenants are not contracts like we understand them in the western world. This distinction needs to be addressed so that we can understand what is being communicated through the biblical narrative. The main difference between a contract and covenant is the issue of relationship. Relationship is not a foundation of a contract, only the fulfillment of the obligation that is stated.

Elmer Martens,

God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology A Comparison of Contract and Covenant

The occasion for contract is largely the benefits that each party expects. Thus for a satisfactory sum one party agrees to supply a specified quantity of some desired product for the other party. The contract is characteristically thing-oriented. The covenant is person-oriented and, theologically speaking, arises, not with benefits as the chief barter item, but out of a desire for a measure of intimacy

Therefore, when the Bible speaks about God cutting a covenant with certain persons, it is never about the benefits as much as it is about a relationship and the loyalty to that relationship. If you pay your car payments on time per the terms of your lending contract, your personal relationship with a lender is not strengthened, only your fiscal one. But if a covenant is arranged between two families, for the arrangement of a marriage, then loyalty and relationship is the primary purpose of that covenant.

To properly understand the symmetry and unity of the Bible, we must understand how the covenants that God made with mankind, who He created in his image, all form one unified whole point to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Covenants of the Bible are not these disjointed and unrelated agreements that God made with man. Instead, they are, as Michael Horton states,

“the architectural structure that we believe the Scriptures themselves to yield.”

Therefore, I will define a Biblical covenant as the agreement made stemming from a relationship between God and man which involves:

Relationship

Responsibility

Ramifications

Reminder

I will argue that there are six covenants in the Bible that represent the work of redemption in the world. These covenants are unique in their own ways and yet connected as they serve as tributaries that merge to form a large river of God’s faithful redemption that terminate in Jesus Christ. If we look at the covenants at separate ideas and works of God, then we fail to see how God has been active throughout history bringing about one purpose of redemption that comes to fruition in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Those covenants are:

The Covenant with Creation

The Covenant with Adam

The Covenant with Noah

The Covenant with Israel

The Covenant with Abraham

The Covenant with Israel (Mosaic/Sinai)

The Covenant with David

The New Covenant

The Covenant with Creation through Adam and Noah:

Many scholars dispute that God made a covenant with creation through Adam because the Scriptures do not use the covenant language in Genesis account. The first occurrence of the word “covenant” is not found in Scripture until we read it with Noah in Gen 6.

But if you look deeply at the covenants and you consider them as a whole unit all finding their fulfillment in Christ, then you can see how God’s covenant with creation does not begin with Noah, it begins with Adam. I would like to explain the similarities

Language

We have to jump forward to covenant with Noah to see how this plays out. In Gen 6:18, we read

Gen 6:18 “18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.”

The original HB states that God is establishing the covenant. The HB language in this phrase is HEQIM BERIT. HEQIM is to affirm or establish and BERIT is the word used consistently in the Bible for Covenant. Let me say again that BERIT is not used in the HB language until Gen 6:18 with God’s covenant with Noah.

The literal wording of initiating a covenant is written in HB as KARAT BERIT which means to “cut a covenant.” In the practice of covenant making, the cutting a covenant signified the cutting of an animal in two halves and the parties involved walking through those halves to signify the commitment being made. The slain animal represented a promise that if the covenant was broken, the ramifications of the broken covenant would be a curse to all who fail it. We see this practice of cutting a covenant in the story of Abraham

With Noah’s covenant with God, the verbage is establishing a covenant (heqim berit), not cutting a covenant (Karat berit). This is significant because in Gen 15:18 when God enters into a covenant with Abram, we read:

Genesis 15:18 ESV

18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

The words used with Abraham in Gen 15 are Karat Berit as the covenant is made while later it is referred to as affirming the covenant in Gen 17 (heqim berit). This is significant to the covenant with Noah because there does not seem to be a covenant cut with Noah, only one affirmed as previously existing.

The reason: God has already cut a covenant with Adam at Creation that is merely established again with Noah.

While the HB BERIT cannot be found in Gen 1-3 in the creation story, some scholars make the argument that God creating man in “his image” is actually the way in which God cuts a covenant with creation with man serving as the mediator of that covenant.

Therefore in all the covenants, starting with at creation, there is a representative head that serves as representative Adam of that Covenant, tying together the idea that all these Adams of previous covenants fail until the last Adam, who is Jesus Christ fulfills all the previous covenants perfectly. This is why there was a need for a new covenant in Jesus Christ.

Look with me at the parallels that exist between the account of creation and the story of Noah with our covenant lenses applied:

1. Consider how creation language and the flood language are similar. There is a language of God ordering the earth by his creative design, placing land here and water there. Then he causes vegetation to grow to be sustenance and beauty and then making man to rule over that creation with dominion as God’s representative over all He made.

Noah also experiences a new creation in such a way that as the flood waters subside, as all was destroyed, vegetation is found, God reestablishes the creation He made and similarly, God gives Noah, like a Adam, the command to fill the earth and rule over that creation.

Genesis 1:28 ESV

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 9:1 ESV

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Stephen Wellum writes,

God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology Summary > Precise Meaning of the Prepositions “In” (Bĕ) and “As/according to” (Kĕ)

Man is the divine image. As servant king and son of God, mankind will mediate God’s rule to the creation in the context of a covenant relationship with God on the one hand and the earth on the other

Adam, took the role of son to God and was set over creation in a covenant relationship with him. His role as servant king was to take what God had made a rule over it in a way that would bless all that God has created.

2. Notice finally from the language in Gen 9: 10-17

The Covenant with Creation involves God as Creator with Adam and later Noah as its Mediator/Son/King

But Adam rebelled from God’s purpose and plan for him. Instead of loving God well and ruling well, he was unfaithful to his role in relationship with God. Eating the forbidden fruit brought about a curse on both man, woman and beast so that we clearly understand a covenant was in place.

The final parties of the relationship are laid then not only just between God and man, but God, man and all of creation. We read in Gen 9:8-16

Genesis 9:8–16 ESV

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

3. Notice also that the covenant language with Noah includes a covenant of God’s with man and all of creation.

Genesis 9:9–10 (ESV)

9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.

Genesis 9:13 (ESV)

13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Genesis 9:16 (ESV)

16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Therefore the covenant with creation, is with all creation, not just mankind, and Adam and Noah both serve mankind as those “in God’s image” who rule over earth as God’s covenant representatives.

The Responsibility and Ramifications

The Responsibly or the terms of this covenant with creation is that God would provide rest for his creation in fellowship with Him and that his creation would worship Him. In Gen 1-2, the culmination of God’s creation on the 7th day was rest. Man and creation lived in perfect rest and fellowship with God.

But Adam and Eve broke the covenant with God when they ate the fruit for the forbidden tree. The obligations of the covenant for man were stated in Gen 2:15-17

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

When man sinned, that promised rest was distorted and therefore the rest that was provided by God between God and man and man and the earth was ruined.

We see that God cast man and woman out of the garden as part of the violation of the covenant with God therefore their relationship with God was broken. Also broken, was the relationship with mankind and the earth. The relationship with God needed restoration and the relationship with man and creation needs restoration as well.

Similarly, after the flood, whereby God’s shows grace to mankind again, we once again see the effects of sin in Noah and his family. It is no coincidence that both our Adam and Noah had a scenario where sin lead to nakedness and shame. These are the effects of sin in all of us that cannot be remedied by man alone.

But God maintained his promise to man and the earth. Even when sin entered the world, God remained faithful as man failed him his representative in his image. He flooded the earth but he did not destroy it completely and start over. While the flood covered the earth, God provided rest for mankind within the confines of the ark built by Noah. God allowed Noah to escape the judgment on man and the earth in the flood only to see God’s faithful hand once again keep his agreement with man and the earth.

Genesis 8:20–21 ESV

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

God’s continually shows that he is a faithful God in the midst of his sons and those in his image failure to keep covenant with God. God requires loyalty to him and obedience to his commands but mankind will continually fail in this way. This shows the great depth of sin’s curse in the human heart that reverberates through not only Adam to Noah but to Abraham, to David to Israel as a nation and the mankind as a race of people.

This highlights the great need for something new. We need a new and better Adam and an eternal rest. What we see in this summary is that only in Jesus can we find fulfillment in God’s covenant with creation.

The Covenant with Creation Fulfilled in Jesus

Jesus is the solution for man’s struggle with sin because Jesus comes to be the better and final representative. The Covenant requires that the human representative show obedient faithfulness to the covenant with God. Jesus is the one who accomplishes that by his power and might.

Jesus is the Better Adam and Noah

Romans 8:3 (ESV)

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

Jesus was born fully God and fully man and therefore, He was chiefly represented mankind by being born in the likeness of men. He was born in the likeness of men like Adam which allows him to be a better representative for mankind than Adam was. He is also the image of the invisible God.

Therefore in his perfect and uncorrupted humanity, Jesus is able to be the perfect representative for covenant keeping because He was faithful in every way to keep the covenant with the Father. He is the perfect King who rules perfectly and the perfect Son who loves and shows loyalty to the Father and the covenant.

Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, lived a perfect life and then died to defeat the curse of sin upon all creation that originated in Adam and has its effect through all the covenants. His victory over sin and death was fortold back in the creation covenant in Gen 3:15

Genesis 3:15 ESV

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This defeat was one that would resonate so powerfully that creation itself would be required to be made new again. That new creation stats on that Sunday morning when Jesus rose up out of that tomb. His resurrection is called the firstfruits not only of followers of Jesus rising from teh death, but the earth becoming a new creation as well.

1 Corinthians 15:20–21 ESV

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

Romans 8:19–24 ESV

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

See this diagram, which could be found in a resource that has been helpful in my understanding of covenants. I commend that resource to you as we study these ideas of covenants more closely,

Next week, we will see those remaining covenants narrow down with Abraham, Israel and David only to come to a glorious fulfillment in Christ.

Purpose of covenants: to see God’s glory manifest in his faithfulness as he relates to that which he made. His loving, patient, and merciful character is put forth in contrast to man’s sinfulness, covenant breaking which necessitates Jesus to come to be for us what we could not accomplish ourselves.

Nehemiah 9:17 (ESV)

17 ...But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

Let me conclude with the final aspect of this creation covenant: The Rainbow. Any believer who sees the rainbow remembers the covenant God made to never destroy the earth but the word rainbow is a bad translation. It’s not meant to be a symbol of colorful happiness like the rainbow signifies in our culture. Nor is it biblical to consider the pot of gold at the end of it.

The bow was a weapon of war but as a sign of the covenant God recreated the bow by placing it in the heavens as a sign of peace that is found in him. The rainbow at the flood story is a sign that God is faithfully working forward to re-creation. Where war is replaced with peace. This is accomplished in Jesus Christ, where war with God is recreated and enemies of Him become sons and daughters through the death and resurrection of his Son.